Project Summary - Animal Metabolism Phenotyping Core The objective of the Animal Metabolism Phenotyping (AMP) Core is to facilitate multifaceted use of mouse models to study energy balance by supporting high quality and high throughput phenotyping of energy balance components. The AMP Core is a comprehensive, full-service, high-throughput, cost efficient and accessible facility that provides technical support and expertise in measuring traits related to energy balance in mouse models of obesity and nutritionally relevant disease. The Core provides access to state of the art methods, equipment and populations to assure a high level of quality control and maximal throughput that could not be achieved (or afforded) by individual investigators. The AMP Core currently provides a variety of comprehensive, high-throughput services that can be interfaced with nutritional (and/or other environmental) treatments, such as long term feeding of different diets, or short term provision of specific nutrients or therapeutic compounds. Existing services include: Study Design and Data Interpretation, Analysis of Body Composition, Analysis of Bone, Analysis of Voluntary Exercise, Analysis of Exercise Endurance, Analysis of Energy Expenditure, Analysis of Home Cage Activity, Analysis of Feeding Behavior, Collection of Chilled Urine and Feces, and Access to the Collaborative Cross and Diversity Outbred ?Next Generation? Mouse Resource for Nutrition and Nutrigenomic Research. AMP core services are being expanded from the UNC-Chapel Hill campus to include an additional site at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) in Kannapolis, NC. The purpose of this is three-fold. First, this further integrates the burgeoning population of UNC-CH researchers housed at the NRI to utilize the NORC core services. Second, this begins to utilize the extensive resources available at the NRI including additional vivarium space. And third, this will enable core services to be provided to a diverse group of external users including academic partners from Appalachian State, David H. Murdock Research Institute, NC A&T University, NC Central University, NC State University, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro, Duke University, and industry partners from Dole Nutrition Research Laboratory, General Mills, JC Med LLC, and Monsanto. Remarkably, this expansion now enables all AMP core services to be ?nearly fully? mirrored in three unique locations, including McGavran Greenberg (the original AMP location where the Department of Nutrition is housed), Genetic Medicine (within the largest UNC vivarium), and the North Carolina Research Campus (the newest focal point for obesity and nutrition research in North Carolina).